...tionalists in general, neither Martov and his friends, nor Natanson and his friends. The British returned Chernov to France, even though he had all the papers for passage!! It is clear that the Russian proletarian revolution has no worse enemy than English imperialists. It is clear that the lackey of Anglo-French imperialist capital and Russian imperialist Milyukov (and Co.) are capable of resorting to anything — to deception, to betrayal, to everything, everything — to prevent internationalists from returning to Russia. The slightest credulity in this regard toward either Milyukov or Kerensky (an empty chatterer, an agent of Russian imperialist bourgeoisie by his objective role) would be directly ruinous for the workers' movement and for our party, would border on betrayal of internationalism. The only, without exaggeration the only, hope for us to get to Russia is this — to send as soon as possible a reliable person to Russia in order, by means of pressure from the "Soviet of Workers' Deputies," to compel the government to exchange all Swiss émigrés for interned Germans. One must act with extreme energy, recording every step in protocols, not sparing money on telegrams, gathering documents against Milyukov and Co., capable of dragging out the affair, feeding us with promises, deceiving us, and so forth. You can imagine what torture it is for all of us to sit here at such a time.

Further. The dispatch of a reliable person to Russia is even more necessary on principled grounds. The latest news from foreign newspapers increasingly indicates that the government, with the direct assistance of Kerensky and thanks to the unforgivable (to put it mildly) vacillations of Chkheidze, is deceiving and quite successfully deceiving the workers, passing off the imperialist war as a "defensive" one. According to a telegram from the Petrograd Telegraph Agency from March 30, 1917, Chkheidze has completely allowed himself to be deceived by this slogan, which was adopted — if one trusts this source, of course, which is generally unreliable — even by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.

In any case, even if this news is not true, the danger of such deception is nonetheless enormous. All efforts of the party must be directed toward combating it. Our party would disgrace itself forever, would politically destroy itself, if it resorted to such deception. Judging by one report, Muranoff, together with Skobelev, has returned from Kronstadt. If Muranoff went there on the orders of the Temporary Government of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, I earnestly ask you to transmit (through a reliable person) and publish that I condemn this unconditionally — that any rapprochement with those wavering in the direction of social-patriotism and those standing on the deeply erroneous, deeply harmful social-pacifist, Kautskyist position of Chkheidze and Co., according to my deepest conviction, is harmful to the working class, dangerous, inadmissible.

I hope you have received my "Letters from Afar" Nos. 1-4*, where I have developed the theoretical and political foundations of these views. If these letters have been lost or have not reached Petrograd, I ask you to telegraph me, and I will send copies.

There is no doubt that in the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies there are numerous supporters, and apparently even a majority, of (1) Kerensky, the most dangerous agent of imperialist bourgeoisie, promoting imperialism — that is, the defense and justification of the predatory, conquering war on Russia's part — under the cover of a sea of resounding phrases and empty promises; (2) supporters of Chkheidze, shamelessly vacillating in the direction of social-patriotism and sharing all the vulgarity, all the absurdity of Kautskyism. With both tendencies our party is obliged to struggle in the most stubborn, the most principled, the most persistent, the most merciless manner. And I personally do not hesitate for a second to declare, and to declare in print, that I would prefer even immediate schism with anyone whatsoever in our party rather than make concessions to the social-patriotism of Kerensky and Co. or to the social-pacifism and Kautskyism of Chkheidze and Co.

* See Works, 5th ed., vol. 31, pp. 9-54. Ed.